Arsenal went out of the Carabao Cup, losing 4-1 to Man City at the Emirates this evening.
Alexandre Lacazette equalised an early Gabriel Jesus opener, but three second half goals from City saw the game get away from us.
Read the Arsenal 1-4 Man City match report and see the goals here
Arsenal 1-4 Man City – Player Ratings
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Have we become Newcastle?
Yes
Haven’t seen Newcastle that bad.
Yes, sweetheart. Yes we have.
Leeds
QPR under Redknapp
5-5 and penalties against that team in this cup you know
Coventry
Leeds circa 2003-2004. With less talent.
Derby
Leeds are much better
No, but we need to build one because ours is getting obliterated.
We’re Leeds circa 02/03
Manure, Citeh, Spuds, Newcastle, Sunderland, Chelski, Liverpool, Wolves, Villa, West Ham, & Coventry, Birmingham, Forest even – all top flight teams for so long who have been relegated. In fact, only us and Everton haven’t but this is our closest call yet.
That’s quite unfair…. On Newcastle
Sunderland
Arteta would be of more use as a player rather than manager.
I didn’t watch today. I decided to do some Christmas baking with my family instead. I had a wonderful time with them, then just checked the scored, shrugged it off and ate some cookies. I’m going to enjoy this Christmas break no matter how Arsenal perform. I think I may do some more baking during the Chelsea match. Arsenal might make me fat this season, but at least I’ll be happy.
Merry Christmas Blogs and everyone else. May you all not let Arsenal get you down. 2020 is ending soon. Bring on 2021.
Funny, I decided to rearrange my sock drawer instead. Turned out to be way more exciting.
Funny that. I finally got round to putting away my summer clothes last night so I can actually hang up my winter clothes in my wardrobe without having to pile them in an indeterminate heap. I suddenly started sobbing into a pair of my old swimming trunks.
These days, more and more, when Arsenal play I find myself wandering off to do something else like yard work or DIY projects or other types of work I normally do when I don’t have anything more enjoyable to do because it’s much more enjoyable to do all sorts of work then to watch Arsenal. I should ask my neighbors if they need the lawn mowed next time Arsenal play! I never did that before this season. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely do care still and always will, so I follow the scores like a hawk and still feel… Read more »
Very happy to see Martinelli for a half. Let’s hope the injury isnt too serious. Smith-Rowe looks great, Balogun looks like a potential beast even at this level. AMN is so smooth I can’t give it an objecive analysis.
I want them all on the pitch.
I’ll survive without DiveyMcCan’trun tho.
When you “this level”, I assume you are taking about relegation battling level… because I’d say he’s potentially better than that, unlike the most of the other chumps we have.
Good point
Letting Martinez go is fair enough (sort of) but replacing him with this poor fella? Fuck me, who thought that was a good idea? I mean, really???
it’s ok, at least we know macey is firmly the #2 now
Don’t be so naive. We were wasting all of that money on scouting when we could have just been asking former coaches if they knew anyone who’d recently been dropped and thus might be available.
Don’t forget Kia or the players we could sign on to line the pockets of our mates. Important criteria a scout could never identify.
Corruption is rife.
Our scouts recommend to sign the nice boy down the street if their mum told them to.
We paid 70m for Pepe, gave Willian 3 years to stroll around, did over Saliba, delisted Ozil because we brought in Willian to be our overpaid passenger but kept paying Ozil, signed a dozen mediocre defenders… buying a 25yo GK who is two leagues away from PL quality barely ranks in the top stupid recruiting decisions we’ve made.
We also decided we want to injure our own players now, interesting development.
It’s like replacing your house with a used wheelie bin.
To be fair, that was never the plan.
There is a ton to complain about, lets at least be fair about it, yeah?
I think the issue is that there was never a plan. Other than trying to squeeze into 4th place by hook or by crook, and it has finally caught up with us.
He’s not the only mistake they when they planned the squad for this year’s competition. They are lucky Leno hasn’t got injured, would’ve been a lot more embarrassing.
I think letting martinez go was a terrible decision. Hes better than leno in my opinion. More commanding of his box, more commanding of his defenders. Better with his feet than leno, and definitely better than runarrson. If i spelt it right. But i do feel sorry for him, an unknown against city was always going to be hard. I thought gabriel looked a bit clumsy tonight,lots of little needless niggles on players which will get him on yellows throughout the season, which means potential reds. I have never seen us so awful. Please win at the weekend!!
Selling your best keeper is stupid
And where on god’s green earth is/was Matt Macey?
I think CEballos deserves an even lower score. He’s just such a terribly disappointing player. He wouldn’t even make Real’s bench and they’ve been dreadful, which says a lot about Arsenal for starting him.
I think you’re a bit harsh on Soares. Didn’t really do much in the game, but also didn’t much wrong.
This is just such a crap team that plays with no desire and it’s obvious that Arteta is pretty much done. They hang their heads at every opportunity they get.
Soares is fine, I agree. Ceballos is awful.
He seems to have plenty of natural talent but seems to have a fucked up mindset.
He may have technique and skills, but he has Championship-level athleticism and and a Real Madrid ego.
How about a rating for a linesman who couldn’t spot the third goal was offside? Or a ref who couldn’t spot a blatant dive for the 2nd or a reckless challenge by their keeper which took our best player out?
The keeper won the ball, fortunately it looked like a cut rather than anything serious. Well I hope so anyway because out of all this doom and gloom Martinelli coming back is a positive.
Won the ball but followed through, off his feet, studs up and made contact with BOTH Martinelli’s legs. Defs a yellow and we’ve all seen red shown for similar.
I agree about the offside. The rest is just believing what you want to believe.
What about Fernandinho not getting a booking despite a deliberate handball and a hand in the face, for which Xhaka would have seen two reds?
2 yellows, sorry…..
Yep – I wondered about the face-contact… if it were another player.
Arteta inherited a very bad squad with weak mentality players, but he’s also added to the problem by being naive, stubborn and afraid. Young managers are usually BOLD Lampard came in and in his first few games he started Abraham over Giroud Mount and Pulisic over willian and Pedro and he made it clear to giroud Abraham would be his first choice CF. HE was bold and it worked for him they didn’t have a good defense but the were exciting going forward. I thought Arteta would come in and not be drastic but at least be bolder than he… Read more »
1. Their squad was better, and they have since added to it like no other team in European football during the pandemic.
2. Their culture has always been stronger since Mourinho’s first stint in 04-05, leading us smoothly into
3. The toxic element of Arsenal’s dressing room makes theirs look like Buddhist monks.
3. They have a much better and settled executive structure, which sets the tone.
In short, it’s chalk and cheese.
But I think the point he makes about being bold bears making anyway. Chelsea may have bought a gazillion stars this summer but Lampard has persisted with some young talent and improved their value in the market exponentially. Their squad is not only better but they have also developed them better IN ADDITION to having all that oil/blood money sloshing about.
our midfield is championship level our attack is low PL table quality and our defense is championship level right now its as if were punching above our weight because some championship team would beat us LOOk at Leeds they trashed us last year we beat them by luck and this year theyre ahead of us to show they are actually a better team than us quality wise. its a terrible situation for arsenal right now.
It’s weird this is the pain you could only wish on Spurs and the dire mess they were in back in the day when they had the train ticket manager who tried to get them relegated.
If this is karma it really is a bitch.
Ratings seem really biased lately, understandbly so. But I don’t really get the stick for Kolasinac, he was involved in lots of good movements tonight. On the other hand I don’t understand Willock. What is he? What does he bring to the team? To me he’s sort of like Ceballos (without the theatrics at least) but probably more limited.
He killed me with the ball-stare instead of putting Balogun free on goal tho. Othe rthan that I don’t really have an opinion.
I commented during the game that I can’t remember the last time he completed a forward pass longer than like 3 feet (he completes many backwards ones). If you can I’d love to be reminded of it.
By he I mean Kolasinac by the way.
Kola was good until he was offside around 75th min, I was surprised by his defending and the forward passes he was making… went to shit after that though. Will pick was definitely one of our best players today…his passing looked really good and he showed ability and bravery when receiving the ball from defense.
He really wasn’t though and never was. He has a look of sheer panic on his face whenever he receives the ball, and I get that confidence team wide is down, but he’s had that look for a couple years now.
Yeah. I’m not saying I like him either. But he was, and usually is, busy tonight, combining, crossing… probably deserves more than Cedric who was absolutely invisible and mayne AMN who had a stinker
Willock, Nketiah, Nelson aren’t good enough but then neither are the senior players.
Nelson has potential but Willock and Nketiah I don’t see a future at Arsenal.
I don’t know about Nelson, I still feel like there could be a player in there
Missing Balogun on that through ball is worth whatever bad rating anyone wants to give him
It’s his opinion man, sometimes clouded with bias and favouritism. It is not an objective measure of performances so don’t lose your sleep over it, give your own rating.
Oh yes I know that, I was just, you know, expressing my opinion. And you’re the one writing at 2’o clock in the morning 😉
I like when he belts forward receives the ball and belts it backwards
You could be talking about Kola, Elneny, Ceballos, or Mustafi there
I remember thinking during the game that I’d probably give a left eye to see Kolasinac hug the line and try creating chances like he used to in early Emery days. I think I saw him do that cross today for the first time in 2020. What happened?
thanks for the massive amount of time and energy you put in to the arseblog, arsecasts and live blogs. amazing work.
Who would down vote this? Thanks Blogs and team, makes supporting Arsenal tolerable right now!
Nice to know, even though flying high under the Cunt of Cunts, there are still a couple of Spuds who can’t help obsessing about us.
Cheers!
Good egg
Tonight just really highlights how far away we are from being a semi competent football team. City didn’t have to try at all really. I know the keeper had a fucking stinker, and the usual suspects let us down with terrible performances again — but who are we kidding? City had so many gears they could have gone through whenever they wanted. If they decided to up it a tiny bit at any point in that game there wasn’t one single thing we could have done about it. We were just bystanders basically. Sure Martinelli looked like a real bright… Read more »
I think Brighton and then Newcastle in the Cup will be the decision makers. Lose those and you still have some January time to shift the squad out/in.
Sorry, I left out WBA – lose either of those league games and we’re in relegation trouble for real.
Yep, it was so easy for city to get out of defence. Our press was just too easy to break and they always seemed to find space between the lines.
Blogs, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve put together on the site and the podcast over the past couple of months. If it’s been miserable for us as fans, I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, having to dissect Arsenal’s various flavors of crap in detail. Just know it makes it a lot more bearable for all of us, and I appreciate it.
HEAR HEAR!!
well said, pound.
And more marathon pods please, helps to have voices alongside my brain going nuts thinking about where we are the whole day.
Cheers, glad to be of service 😉
Martinelli is the real deal, i think the rating for Lacazette is way too high and I believe pepes too low. But I guess our problems is a bit bigger than that…
Pepe was pretty useless. Off the ball, he positions himself badly and wastes energy. On the ball he does have some idea of which way to go unlike most of the team, but he also looks short on confidence and misfiring in general.
His first touch is incredible. From there it’s a crap shoot on what occurs, mostly it’s him losing the ball.
Could anyone explain how Arteta could decide that Runarsson was not good enough to start against Dundalk and Molde, yet good enough to start against Man City? Arteta is confused and clearly out of his depth!
Its not that simple though, is it?
This match and this tournament don’t matter. Perhaps this was MA experimenting – and yes, by gawd i’m REALLY reaching here. Ouch!!…i actually just pulled a muscle. Medic!!
And the bigger game is on 12/26. Rest Leno for that one. Much much more important (i reckon another drubbing, dont misunderstand).
We’ll be in a relegation battle after the next three games. This club is proper fucked.
Am now feeling sorry for this Coach. Despite that, he is to blame because he is tolerating nonsense from other players. How do you identify where the gaps or problems are? Here are some suggestions that can help identify Arsenal problems: 1. If you have a team that is conceding more goals, that should tells you there is no defence, there is a problem with the defence. This is the problem with Arsenal and have to be addressed. Just to state that the only defenders we have are Tierney and Gabriel and Miltland period. Solution, sell the others and get… Read more »
Oof, I really do wish the best for Arteta but we really are quite boring to watch. At least under Wenger we played some beautiful football. I hope it’s just a healing process and we get back to at least the minimum expectations for Arsenal. 🙁
We’re not even challenging for the Top 10 at the moment let alone Top 4…
AMN’s passing is quite worrisome…
He is too casual sometimes, pretending that it’s no big deal for him. But it’s a big deal when you can’t complete a simple pass
He’s Gnabry isn’t he? He’ll go somewhere else and become incredible.
He’s not Gnabry. He is nowhere near Gnabry. No end product. Great penalty taker and can use pace to recover I defence, but going forward he is rubbish.
The point is… Gnabry was also ‘not good enough for us’ ?
I like that he’s trying things. Some 1-2’sthat dont always come off. I much rather see that than safe passing back to CB
City is obviously a better side, but two terrible goalkeeping errors and an obviously offside goal were the difference tonight.
Now hang on one darn minute.
Lets have none of that positivity in here. THIS, my friend, the that catharsis scream zone.
Now let’s get to it!
Obv one goalkeeping howler but the other was just as much the fault of our defenders.
Well yes but that’s what you get for having a crap keeper and shit defenders.
The offside is just the way things are going for us.
We’ve signed someone who doesn’t even appear to be of a professional level, let alone elite level, and played them several times. Which is emblematic of the lack of judgement, professionalism, ambition, and plain fucking effort that has plagued our club since we became part of KSE. I feel bad for Runarsson, honestly. He should never have had the opportunity to be in this position I know our GK coach recommended him. But how many people along the chain of command had the power to veto this transfer? That is where our problems lie. They have to be either stupid,… Read more »
I’m 100% with you, The Arsenal in shambles and is the executive team part of the non negotiables? We only see the players and therefore we blame them but our executive team should be made responsible as well. Hope they get purged in January.
Felt sorry for Runarsson. Sometimes you need to gamble, but going into a season one injury away from Runarsson becoming our first choice keeper, isn’t a gamble, it’s negligence. We should really do something about that in January, but it’s another mistake we’re likely stuck with for some time. Shows how far we’ve fallen, we’ve just lost 1-4 at home, and my general mood is, other than the first 18 minutes, I didn’t hate the overall performance. There was some stinkers, but I can’t help but think it could have been worse. Hopefully Martinelli is alright, sending him back out… Read more »
Same. Start of the match we played like shite but actually some positives later on. Arteta complaining about luck is pissing me off though. Yes we were unlucky in some key decisions but if Runarsson is out of his depth, that’s not “bad luck”!
I don’t understand football anymore, I think I just took it for granted that it was an enjoyable thing to watch, but it isn’t, it’s just shit!
Didn’t understand why MA didn’t start Balogun and Smith Rowe. I was hoping that he’d start the youth. Runarrson is awful. Is he better than Macey? Otherwise what is the point of rolling out Mustafi, Kola, Cedric. We know they are poor.
Can someone tell me why we are playing with two midfielders when they add no creative or defensiv value at all.
Go for a straight 4-0-6 line up and just play it long. Until Partey is fit and we can play a straight 4-1-5.
Play it long to whom? We don’t have anyone who can genuinely compete in the air.
might as well do 0-0-10 since our def isnt good too
When we did have the ball early on we didn’t know what to do with it. No expected movement, no default play, the invincibles (I know think how lucky we were back then!) all knew the drill – get the ball, give it to Viera, who passed it to Pires or Bergkamp, who either scored or passed it to Henry. Now I know we have none of that quality but we can at least prevent ourselves from looking so lost by having a basic plan of how we intend in getting the ball from the back to the front. Any… Read more »
What was maitland-niles doing behind the wall?
Blocking a potential low shot when the wall jumps.
Still think we should have a manager rating as well
My head hurts!
Who really thought the result today would be other than an arsekicking, like we got? This tournament matters not. Lets not overreact. I mean, we are shit. The players cannot seem to do anything right, and MA blabbering nonstop from the sidelines only makes this worse. The players are confused by the micromanaging. Everything they do is racked by hesitancy and no confidence. MA is actively making this worse. Surely someone at the club can see the obvious. Were the stadiums full, the noise would drown out his droaning on, the players would relax, and probably perform better. Don’t misunderstand;… Read more »
No matter how much we hate to lose, no matter how clueless our manager is, no matter how spinless this team is, no matter how dumb our owner is, no matter how poorly our club is run, we will Love Arsenal no matter what. One day all these jokers will be gone and the sun will shine back on Arsenal. Stay safe and have a merry Christmas fellow Gooners.
Considering the run we are on, it’s high time arteta asks the team to attack with abandon….this team has been playing with handbrakes since the last season of wenger. No more horseshoe….he will get a lot more goodwill if we played like Leeds and were at the same position in the table. Play saliba and gabriel and we concede what we concede.
Blogs being soft on mustafi.. go check the highlights.. blundering buffoon is waving around for offside instead of marking the man right next to him.. how does he always move away from the flight of the ball.. i feel for arteta.. bunch of shit players and divas in this team. the kids are showing them up each week.
That’s the essence of Mustafi there, makes a bad decision and waves around to protest innocence. Either immediately blaming a more junior player who had nothing to do with his brainfart or trying to get the whistle blown where there is nothing happening. Play to the whistle, take responsibility, stuff 12 year olds are expected to do on the pitch. Until Willian flew in from Panama easily my least favourite player.
Mustafi definitely showed yet again why he is a total liability.
Positives – the kids
Negatives – Everyone else
If Leno gets injured we will go down.
Emi Martinez made blunders in his first few matches for arsenal. Remember the reading game which ended 7 5?
He was a lot younger, he was also home grown and didn’t cost us any money.
That was in 2012, what the hell has it got to do with now? Young players grow up and mature you know.
Young – 6.5 because they are young. Did nothing in the game but narrative in full force. play the youth in cups we are alredy OUT of There is ONE FA cup game left. Narrative club is struggling these days.
I think that Arteta over-managed the team. He would be the happiest if he could remote control the players during the game. Football is simple game and players are not the brightest minds on Earth. Be smart play simple and fast. One touch or two and play forward. Try to pass trough defence without let them return to their places and prepare… If we are not able to score, then be sure not to conceed easily. If we are going to play 5-3-2 with Auba and Pepe forward, two very fast players who can both score and assist but need… Read more »
It’s clear that appointing Arteta was a mistake for the club and him. A post Wenger Arsenal is not the place to be appointed to your first job. The squad needs a kick up the arse from someone like Sarri.
That through ball played by Smith Rowe to Lacazette was probably the first ball played like that in ages!
Laca and Auba need balls like that to play with. They’re being starved, which leads to low confidence which leads to floundering chances.
It felt so good watching a ball played through the middle than a cut pass from wide. I almost orgasm’d.
Was soaring right alongside you there… until your last sentence!
Mustafi & Kolasinac were both shite again tonight. Twice Mustafi had his back to the ball as it came into the box, they scored on both occasions. And Runnarsson is clearly not a Premier League standard keeper…..
Pepe “didn’t really make an impact ” I think those words will sum his Arsenal career…
“if anything happens to Bernd Leno we are in so much trouble” ??? we are 15th in the PL FFS how much more trouble can we get ourselves into? … i am embarrassed of everything arsenal at the moment.
Happy Christmas. London lockdown. Another loss…. always remember we won the league at that shit hole….
It was much more expressive when Soares’s avatar doesn’t have a face.
Dreadful period. Probably the worst Arsenal side that I have seen in 57 years of supporting the club.
I recall a mid 70’s team (with a very young Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and Dave O’Leary) that flirted with disaster and finished 17th. Then there was and early 80’s team that struggled (Hollins, Hawley, Lee Chapman etc.) but had some promising young kids like Paul Davis. Those teams were not good but I seemed to remember they had some spirit and fight and did not hide on the field.
Not too sure about the spirit but I gree with the sentiment. I also remember a vocal minority happy to boo Davis, the young kid trying to play, surrounded by a sea of dross. He went on to be a lovely player.
And a diamond geezer to boot
Gonna have a pint and a wee drop and toast all of us who are slogging through all this. Cheers and Merry Christmas all. Let’s hope January brings hope.
I have a mate, who isn’t cash poor. Arsenal fan his whole life. Season Ticket Holder Takes himself and his two sons and one other friend 9sometimes me) to home games. After this season. My mate: I’m done my family are DONE. The Kronkes can shove the tickets up their Yankee arses. Says-It-All. My perspective? Two months ago. ME: Arteta is out of his depth. Get rid……………………. End of x
I simply don’t understand why we are playing Kola and Mustafi. Both have no future at this club. Both massively underperforming. Surely there are some kids who could play instead. Also Ceballos is the weirdest player I have ever watched. He clearly has technical ability but regularly fails to complete simple things that any PL player should be able to do.
Looks like Runnarson another uninspired buy.
How bad is Saliba that he can’t even start ahead of Mustafi? And why did we pay so much for both but particularly a young player who won’t feature? Insane business.
Laca came up with the goods today. Martinelli looks inspiring.
BUT frankly we were outplayed again….yet another loss.
And likely we will lose the next match with Chelsea (Don’t hold your breath)
Club looks simply idiotic carrying on with Arteta and Edu.
We head into Jan with these two in charge dictating on transfers. Will make it harder for the next gaffer eventually.
This won’t be a popular comment but I think that’s overly harsh on Elneny and especially Ceballos, who, theatrics aside, worked like a beast and played positively all night. If we weren’t totally overwhelmed it was thanks to them, but the overall team selection was a VERY low level with several players I never want to see in an Arsenal shirt again. I think we all know who they are. Agree on Runarsson, felt sorry for the lad, and looks way out of his depth sadly.
AMN, I’ve said it before, he is too casual to be in midfield. As much as granit has liabilities, options beyond don’t look bright either. Ceballos frankly needs to play higher up. Willock is willing but lost at times. Elneny is improved and better but he is still not the sort of top drawer we need in midfield. Jury still out on Partey due to injury, hopefully he can eventually provide some answers. BUT that’s a very big deficiency in midfield. Don’t expect us to go out and buy 4 or 5 players like some vacuous pundits keep suggesting. We… Read more »
Granit doesn’t ‘have liabilities’, Santa – Granit IS one huge liability: his well-documented (and sadly equally well-exploited) footballing limitations aside, he has once again revealed himself to be a self-centered, ill-discplined thug, who’s arrogance consistently puts his own ego above his team and club… To whit: (a) securing a certain red card by wanting to be ‘macho’; (b) once again not having the basic emotional EQ to realise what he’s done and apologise to club and fans.
Liability is way to kind a word.